HANS SCHAFER:
THE HITS INTERVIEW

Hans Schafer has been at the forefront of Latino recording artists’ ascent to global powerhouses. The second-generation music-biz exec—his stepfather is Jesús López, the chairman/CEO of Universal Music Latin America & Iberian Peninsula, while his mother was once a label manager at BMG Latin—is in a unique position: He understands this musical phenomenon not only as a music-business trailblazer but also as a prototypical Hispanic-music fan who straddles two distinct cultures. Schafer’s career is marked by his ability to foster strong relationships with artists, managers and industry stakeholders, which has been crucial in securing high-profile tours and enhancing Live Nation’s global footprint. As the company’s SVP of global touring, Schafer continues to drive its mission to connect artists with their fans worldwide, solidifying his status as a key influencer in the live-music sector.

You were born into a music business family. Did you always know this was something you wanted to do as well, or did you come around to the business later in your life?

From a really young age, I’d do things like hang out at the warehouse and put CDs together. My family always had artists coming in and out of the house, and I was constantly going to concerts. I always knew that music was where I ultimately wanted to be.

What music moved you during your formative years?

I was born in Miami and raised between Miami and Spain. Consequently, I had a wide appreciation for different styles of music. Even in high school, my tastes didn’t fall into a box where there was only one genre of music that I enjoyed. I listened to rock, flamenco and hip-hop, as well as a lot of jazz. But when I was about 15, I first heard Paco De Lucía and Al Di Meola play “Mediterranean Sundance,” and that was a pivotal song for me. It really caused a shift in the kind of music I was listening to.

What was your first job in the music business?

I did an internship at Universal, and I spent some time with the press and publicity department, the marketing department and the radio-promotions department. I always thought it was important to have a strong foundation of understanding the industry from a lot of different areas. For example, you’re a better promoter if you think like a marketer, and you’re a better marketer if you think like a promoter.

Where did you end up after your internship?

Once I graduated college, I went to Spain for a few months during the summer and traveled a bit before coming back, and then I started working at Mun2.

Mun2 was probably the first major media outlet to recognize kids who were equally at home listening to music in Spanish and mainstream pop and rock. What was it like building a network around this burgeoning Latino youth culture?

Mun2 was this bilingual, bicultural, music-lifestyle channel, which is something I related to. It was an interesting space because nobody was in it at that moment. There were no radio stations that were programming English and Spanish; everything was single format. Mun2 was really the precursor to the world we live in today, and I was passionate speaking about what we were doing at the channel. We would go and sit with non-Latin labels and try to explain this opportunity, and the immediate sort of reaction was, “But you’re a Latin channel.” It really hit me to my core. I thought, Wait a minute, if you don’t understand, then let me explain to you who I am so that you can understand what the channel is.”

Los Bukis' first reunion-tour announcement at Sofi Stadium

During your five years at Mun2, what were your roles?

When I started, it was 24 hours a day of music blocks. I was working in talent and artist relations, and I was initially tasked with establishing a relationship between the labels and Mun2 to ensure that we received video content. That eventually lead to bringing in artists as we developed original programs. That was a great time, because the edict was to do what you think is cool and don’t worry about the ratings.

At one point I was asked if I wanted to book the regional Mexican show Reventon. The answer was absolutely, and I jumped in headfirst. In the beginning I had a basic sort of understanding of the groups, the music, the different subgenres. I leaned hard on the team to take me through the evolution of the music. Those were some beautiful years of music discovery.

Your time at Mun2 definitely sounds like it gave you the freedom to try a lot of things, since there wasn’t a defined playbook. What was the big takeaway from your time there?

The audience is always the most important conversation. Whether we are talking about Mun2 or about the labels, we’re constantly looking to reach the target audience and to become the experts in knowing everything about them. This has always been my ethos. You have to understand where the audience is, how they consume music and who they are. I was able to take that expertise with me into a brand-partnerships role with Universal where you needed to be the expert on the artist and understand how to reach the audiences the brands are targeting.

How did the opportunity arise to work with brand partnerships at UMG?

I was familiar with a lot of that team that early on was into sponsorship and endorsements. Back then, this was a transitional period for the labels—the business models were changing. This was the beginning of singles on iTunes, and ringtones were a big part of that business as well. There was a big push across the industry to find other business models and sources of revenue. Brand partnerships was one of those areas and I thought it was interesting, even though I didn’t come from a sales background. I liked the idea of working hand in hand with the other departments, the label managers and the IP owners.

With Marco Antonio Solis, Christy Solis, Joaquin Vodanovich, Hector Kron, Jorge Garcia

What were some of your career highlights during your tenure at UMG?

We did some deals with MasterCard that were special. One of those deals ended up being the bridge to the next iteration of my career. We did a priceless experience with Juanes, who at that time had just finished his MTV Unplugged album. We did an album launch with a private performance for about 400 winners in Puerto Rico. One of the reasons I loved that deal is because it brought all of the priorities together. It was great for MasterCard, great for the label, great for the artist and great for the manager.

At the time, Juanes was managed by Rebeca León, who was also at AEG. The MasterCard campaign brought me face to face with her and she got to see me work. That deal included a lot of moving parts, and it had a huge impact on all the participants. Rebeca and I sat down, and she thought I’d be someone that would work well in the live business. She asked if I had ever considered making the move. I was definitely interested. I stayed on with Universal for about another year until the time was right for me to make the move to Goldenvoice/AEG.

What was your transition like pivoting into the world of touring and becoming a talent buyer?

Initially I was figuring out how the business worked, and I got into it very quickly. I was going out to settle shows, getting deeper into finance, buying shows and putting offers together. I needed to understand what Rebeca had been building and then figure out, how do we build on top of that foundation? How do I come in and add value to that growth?

The first show I ended settling was Romeo Santos. Going to shows became an extra layer of understanding who the audience is. Something that I started learning about and looking at closer were ticket prices. The big thing in our world with live is understanding that people are reaching into their pockets because there is no replacement for live. You have to go to the show to get the full experience. It’s an emotional experience that transcends listening to the song at home. It’s where a fan cements their love for the artist.

This was a huge lesson for me in in understanding you have to find fans at all different price levels. It is something that has become core to my principles as a promoter. You need to have accessible pricing in order to reach the broadest audience.

With Noel Rodriguez, Luis Villamizar, Max Cacciotti, Angel Kaminsky, Schafer and Team Feid’s Veronica Velez

In your four years at Goldenvoice/AEG, what were the tours that really stood out to you?

The J Balvin tour was spectacular because that was right when things were taking off. We did Gloria Trevi and Alejandra Guzmán together. That was a huge win. You could only understand that was going to be a success if you understood who Gloria and Alejandra were as artists and what they represented. Were you Team Guzmán or were you Team Trevi? We also worked with Zoé, Café Tacvba, Tigres Del Norte, La Arrolladora Banda El Limón de René Camacho, Juanes, Aventura and Romeo Santos. It’s a very wide spectrum of artists where the key has always been understanding who the audience is.

When you arrived at Goldenvoice/AEG, the entire Latin Team was only six to 10 people. Today, Latin music is a juggernaut, a seemingly overnight sensation but in reality, something that was years in the making. What made you realize that Latin music was well on its way to achieving ubiquity?

I’m glad you mentioned this because it is a constant conversation. Today people say, “Wow, Latin music has exploded!” Everybody wants to get in now. I’ve been seeing the momentum and growth for over 15 years, and I’m also the product of that music. I am the audience. The other conversation that comes to mind is that Latin is crossing over. That’s not actually true. Latin isn’t crossing over. There’s still singing in Spanish; the artists are still doing what they’ve always been doing. It’s quite the opposite. It’s the audience that is crossing over.

Latin artists are not releasing English-language albums to appeal to a broader audience. Latin artists are releasing their music the same way that they’ve been doing it for years. Now, the audience has grown and, of course, part of that is our core audience has grown. There’s more purchasing power, the economy has gotten better for us Latinos over the last 30 to 40 years. We’ve changed what it looks like to be a Latino.

In previous years we had inflection points like “Macarena.” That song was everywhere; it was a phenomenon. That was the audience crossing over back then. Today we’re seeing more and more instances of those moments at multiple levels. It’s not necessarily that everything is as big as “Macarena” was, but you’re seeing it at a much larger aggregate.

What led you to your current role at Live Nation?

Live Nation approached me, and they had very ambitious goals that were aligned with what I ultimately wanted to do. The company has as an incredible global platform and reach. It was just the right relationship, and I thought there were some great things to be done using the platform the company had built over the years. Emily Simonitsch had already been with the company for many years, and she is an incredible promoter with very deep relationships. We were building a team around that foundation, and when I came in it became a bit more official in terms of a growth strategy that we wanted to execute.

With Chef Hideo

What were some of things you did to grow the business?

We quickly expanded the team, and in short order we expanded our market share too. Our growth exploded. We hit many more markets, went deeper into places where we were already doing business and grew at every level of artist we were promoting.

When I started in 2018, we did the first Luis Miguel tour. That was his first tour in nine years. We also worked with artists like Hombres G, Los Enanitos Verdes, Gloria Trevi, Alejandra Guzmán and Mon Laferte. Then we started achieving success at stadiums, which up to that point was not something we had ever really seen. The company gave us the full support to be able to do something like Los Bukis, which really became the first Latin stadium act. After that we had artists like Bad Bunny and KAROL G doing stadiums. It was also important for us to invest in artist development as much as the large-scale shows. Whether you are talking about an artist like Duki from Argentina doing his first run all the way up to those big established artists like Bad Bunny and everything in between, the scope is very wide.

What are you most proud of in your present-day role?

When I think about the accomplishments in my career, I’m proud of the team we’ve built. They are my unsung heroes. It’s not necessarily because we are a large team, it’s that we are a large Hispanic team. It’s a team that contributes to the diversity in a company as big as Live Nation. Our growth isn’t treated separately or independently from the rest of the company; quite the opposite. We are a part of the foundation. Our integration into Live Nation and having the support of the company on a global basis is incredibly fulfilling.

Looking back over the course of your career and the many artists you’ve worked with, you’ve managed to create live experiences that speak to the totality of what Latinos are listening to, which is challenging. Because whether you’re Cuban, Mexican, Colombian, or whatever your country of origin is, the music that appeals to all of these different fans isn’t necessarily the same. How do you convey this idea that while Latin music is a force within the industry, it’s very much siloed and splintered by the experiences of all these different cultures?

You start by saying Latin is not a genre. That is the key element to get across to people. You don’t have to get any more complicated than that. Latin music is an overarching categorization of music that is performed in Spanish, and that’s it. Beyond that, how far down the rabbit hole do you want to go? We can be here for hours talking about this, but that is the main point to get across: Stop treating Latin as a genre. When you stop treating it like a genre, then you start to understand how multifaceted it is—and it’s the first step of understanding the music and who we are.